Harry Potter and the Substitute Teachers
by DoctorWholigan
Summary: And now for something completely different... What happens when Hagrid is left to choose a replacement teacher for Defence Against the Dark Arts? Crossover, that's what. Fic's not quite finished, but will expand with time. Oh yes.


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**HARRY POTTER AND THE SUBSTITUTE TEACHERS**

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It was the end of the beginning -- evening on the first day back at Hogwarts for Harry Potter; this year would be his fifth. He was delighted at having returned to the great school of witchcraft and wizardry. While he had spent most of the summer with Ron Weasley, while he was with the Dursleys -- the Muggle family that had raised Harry since his first death-defying brush with Lord Voldemort --  they had seemed most determined to be as nasty as possible to make up for the time he would not be with them during the summer. Dudley Dursley, Harry's cousin who could only be described as 'porky', had found every excuse to poke fun at Harry's outrageously mismatched socks. Harry studiously ignored Dudley as he always had since his first year at Hogwarts. The socks were a gift from his friend Dobby, the house-elf, and though Harry was rather fond of the lurid yellow stars on his left foot and eye-straining green moons on his right, he could hardly be bothered to explain to Dudley the importance of Dobby and his socks. Though the Dursleys knew that Harry was not _supposed_ to use magic over the holidays, all he had to do was mutter nonsense words ('_Wobblius bottomus!'_ had proved spectacularly successful) and Dudley would scuttle away as fast as his stubby legs would allow.

        Harry, Ron and Hermione had each taken position nestled in a deep leather armchair next to the fireplace in the Gryffindor common-room; Ron had engaged Harry in a game of wizard's chess and Hermione sat quietly beside them, her nose buried between the pages of _The Advanced Guide to Counter-Curses and Horrible Hexes_, by Ivermynd Terbeltcha. They had talked endlessly on the train, all glad to be back together, but the speech Dumbledore had given at the Great Feast had hardly been his best.

        Grave would have better described it. Only a ghost of the usual smile sat upon his kindly face, making it clear to Harry just how serious he was -- even though Harry already knew why. Lord Voldemort had returned. Several wizards had disappeared already. While the rest of the wizarding world was trying to ignore the gravity of the situation, Dumbledore did what he always did: upset the Ministry of Magic, and told his students about Voldemort anyway. Hogwarts was perhaps the one place in the wizarding world where Harry truly felt safe, since everybody knew that good old Dumbledore was the one and only wizard that the horrible Lord Voldemort would be worried about after all these years regaining his power.

        To prepare for the worst, as the white-bearded old wizard had put it as he addressed the Great Hall, Hermione had plunged herself into the library at first chance, coming back with almost a week's worth of reading. The shadow of apprehension hanging over Hogwarts had gotten to her, too.

        "Something just occurred to me," she declared suddenly, snapping her book shut forcefully. Crookshanks, her ginger tomcat, leapt from her lap with an indignant meow, his bottle-brush tail in the air.

        "What?" asked Harry, as one of Ron's bishops began to wallop his knight.

        "The High Table, during the Feast," she said quickly, "did you notice anything strange?"

        Harry shrugged. Ron turned around, looking impressed with himself. "The pumpkin juice tasted a bit off, didn't it, Harry?"

        Harry nodded that it did, sending forward a rook to stomp Ron's marauding bishop. Hermione shook her head, glowering at them both.

        "There was no Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher this year!" she cried, exasperated at how they could have possibly missed it.

        "Really?" Harry looked up, brushing a tangle of messy black hair out of his eyes.  "I would have thought that Defence would be one of the most important subjects this year, now that Voldemort's back again."  
        Ron stiffened visibly as Harry said the Dark Lord's name. "I don't want to come across You-Know-Who or his cronies without another few _years_ of Defence Against the Dark Arts under my robes. Maybe Dumbledore's going to teach the class himself?"

        "No, I don't think so." Hermione shook her head again. "If he was going to teach it, there wouldn't have been an extra chair at the High Table. The teacher must not have arrived at school yet."

        While Hermione was talking, Ron snatched up a battered copy of _The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts_, which had become quite popular reading. "Hmm," he murmured, flicking through the pages. "From what Percy and my dad have told me, all of the really famous wizards in here have joined with the Ministry to help monitor magical activity. I don't see _who_ would want the job, anyway. Seems to me that every teacher who takes the position winds up straight in the line of fire around Hogwarts."

        "True," added Harry. In his time at Hogwarts, the school had gone through no less than four seperate Defence Against the Dark Arts teachers -- nobody seemed willing, or able, to stay at the position long. "Well, I just hope it's somebody as good as Mad-Eye Moody. '_Constant vigilance!'_" he hollered, in a fair imitation of the gnarled, paranoid old wizard.

        Ron grinned at Hermione conspiratorily. "Maybe they're still working on restoring Gilderoy Lockhart's memory!"

        Shooting Ron a dark look, Hermione got up, collected Crookshanks from his spot by the fire and started packing away her books. "Well, perhaps, well -- but he -- you! Lockhart might have been good looking -- and I'm not saying he was! -- but that doesn't mean he was much of a wizard!" She stomped off, ascending the spiral staircase to the Gryffindor girls' dormitories.

        Ron ran a hand through his shocking red hair, and shrugged. "Hermione's certainly got herself into a right state over all this, hasn't she? I suppose she's right -- as usual. I just hope whoever we wind up with really knows what they're doing."

        "I know how it feels," replied Harry, quietly. He turned his attention to the fireplace; he'd just been soundly beaten again by Ron's superior chessmen. The fire still crackled cheerfully in the hearth, turning the common-room a warm, soft yellow.

        Secretly, he doubted there was very much that a Professor for Defence Against the Dark Arts would be able to teach him. Harry had already beaten Voldemort on three occasions -- four if you counted how he had gotten the lightning bolt scar on his forehead. Although it would be nice to have a few extra hexes up his sleeves, all the same.

        Sure of his own skills as he was, Harry went to bed later that night feeling a little more anxious than most of the Gryffindor students, if not the whole of Hogwarts. His stomach wouldn't sit still, he kept scratching at his scar, and he got up so many times in the night for a drink that in the end, the Fat Lady at the entrance to Gryffindor tower got sick of hearing him whisper 'Orange Sherbert!' and just let him in without the password.

        Harry had a sickening, dreadful thought. If Dumbledore couldn't find anybody that wanted the position of the Defence teacher, then there would be somebody at Hogwarts who would be very pleased. Harry Potter -- the boy who lived -- crept back into bed with a horrible, nagging concern.

        _What if Snape gets the Defence Against the Dark Arts position?_

***

In the morning it was Neville Longbottom that shook Harry awake; long beams of early morning sunlight were already streaking across the dormitory floor. He'd slept in terribly late.

        "Quick, Harry!" cried Neville, throwing Harry's robes at him frantically, "We have Defence first with the Slytherins! We're going out to Hagrid's hut instead of the classroom, so we have to hurry!"

        Harry did not want to hurry. He did not, in fact, want to move at all. His stomach felt like it was spinning in eight directions at once, his tongue had turned to sandpaper against the top of his mouth.

        Somebody else gave Harry a good shove to move him out of bed, and he finally gurgled an affirmative, swinging his legs out and planting his feet on the chilly floor. He dressed quickly, hoping he wasn't going to make everybody late -- Snape would think it was marvellous to deduct points from Gryffindor on their first day.

        Harry, Neville and Ron -- it had been Ron that finally shifted Harry -- clambered down the steps to the common-room, taking them two at a time. Hermione was waiting for them, looking more than her usual agitated self.

        "Come _on_," she complained, dragging the trio of boys down the hallway, "We're going to be late! Honestly, Harry, this isn't like you at all! What _have_ you been up to? Or are you sick? Ooooh, you should go and see Madam Pomfrey if you're not feeling well, Harry."

        "I'm _fine_," Harry snapped, irritably. "Sorry -- I didn't get much sleep. Listen, I think we might end up having Snape for Defence, since he's the only one here qualified to take the lesson."

        Hermione's eyes turned as round as saucers, Ron began to blink furiously as though trying to forget what he'd just heard, and Neville looked as if he might be sick  on the last suit of armour as they dashed across the fields towards Hagrid's hut.

        They arrived out of breath but just in time, clambering up to the group of Gryffindors standing nearest Hagrid's little wooden shack. The Slytherins -- Draco Malfoy in particular -- seemed to want as little to do with the shabby hut as possible. Surely enough, Snape was standing outside, tapping his wrist as though he'd been keeping time.

        "My, my, my," he purred in his greasy voice, "aren't we cutting it awfully close, Mr Potter?" Behind Snape, Malfoy whispered something to his idiot sidekicks, Crabbe and Goyle. They both chuckled moronically. "How good of you to grace us with your presence. I see that Hogwarts' resident celebrity is still able to make time for his classes."

        Harry nodded, his head feeling as if it would drop off his shoulders. Snape! This was _terrible!_ Potions with the Slytherins was bad enough, but now a subject that he actually looked forward to? Already the start of the year was beginning to look grim.

        Snape looked as if he was going to launch into another of his long-winded speeches when Hagrid burst from his hut. He slammed his door shut, banging it loudly on its hinges.

        "Thanks fer watchin' 'em, Professor." Hagrid afforded Snape the barest of civilities. It was no secret he didn't particularly like the Potions master, either. To an audible gasp from Malfoy, Snape turned and stalked off towards the castle.

        Ron nudged Harry in the back. "Hagrid's going to teach us Defence!" he hissed excitedly, until Hermione poked him to keep quiet. There was no mistaking the look on her face, though: she was just as pleased about this as her friends.

        For a while there was silence. Nobody said anything. Hagrid just stared across them all with his beetle-black eyes. Even Pansy Parkinson and her gossiping gaggle of Slytherin girls were keeping their mouths shut. Not one student dared to say a word until their professor -- whom they all assumed was Hagrid -- told them they could. None of the Slytherins looked too pleased with the arrangement; silent though they were, every Gryffindor was wearing a huge smile.

        "Feathers? Wings?!" Seamus Finnegan blurted loudly, pointing at a gap in Hagrid's tightly drawn curtains. The class converged on him, all craning their necks and peering over one another, trying to get a closer look. Seamus was right. Barely lit from the fire in the shack, a set of black feathered wings was sitting quietly.

        Try as he might, Harry couldn't see what they were attached to.

        "Hagrid?" he finally asked, "What's in there?"

        The towering man shook his head, grinning massively. "'Tis not me place ter say it, Harry, but I can tell yeh it's not a what, it's a _who_."

        Draco Malfoy stepped forward, parting the crowd with judicious swinging of his wand. "And just who might they be to keep us all waiting?"

        As if to answer his question the door swung open -- nearly knocking over Neville, who was stumbling around trying to find one of his Every Flavour Beans -- and a tall, lanky figure stepped out, closely followed by a shorter one, to which the black wings were attached.

        The smaller figure was a boy, and a young boy at that. He didn't look as if he could have been much older than seven. He had a firm, square jaw and black hair like Harry's that stuck up in spikes where he had gelled it. His glittering golden eyes flickered nervously over the students and he took a step back, hiding behind the legs of his much taller comrade.

        You might have said he was a man with fur, or you might have said he was a human-looking wolf, but either way he was covered from top to bottom in thick, glacier white fur. His pointy ears stuck out the top of his jet black hair, which was cropped short in a Marine Corps-esque crewcut. Each of his fingers ended in a sharp black claw, and his palms were padded, just like any wolf's. He reached up and took off a pair of rimless square sunglasses, tucking them away inside his jacket, sniffing curiously at the crowd. Both of his eyes were a magnificent emerald green, and he turned, looking straight at Harry.

        Harry was quite suitably unnerved by the inspection, but Hagrid chuckled, clapping a great hand on the tall wolf's shoulder. "Meet yeh Defence teacher."

        He spoke perfect English, with just a hint of an awfully posh accent that Harry's Uncle Vernon tried to put on when he was trying to seem important. "I'm Colonel Paelyn Blaquerocke, and this," he shifted slightly, ruffling the boy's hair, "is Corporal Darius Yeager. We were called here at the specific request of Hagrid, who happens to be a friend of mine, to substitute until your proper Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor has arrived."

        Hagrid was positively beaming once he was mentioned, and Harry assumed that the wolf was somebody he held in high respects. "Now," continued Paelyn, "are there any questions?"

        Every hand shot straight into the air.

        "Yes?" Paelyn began to point at random students to try and answer them.

        "What are you?"

        "I'm a Primarch, the same as my young friend Dee here, created through gene splicing and mutagenic techniques. Are any of you familiar with genetics?"

        Three hands stayed up -- one of them was, naturally, Hermione's. Another belonged to Malfoy.

        "Genetics is a Muggle science!" he shouted. He looked thoroughly outraged, and a few of the Slytherins nodded their agreement. "You have no magical talent at all, do you, _Colonel_?"

        Paelyn simply grinned; a long line of sharp white teeth appeared, and those students closest to him took nervous steps back. Muggle or not, his gleaming green eyes were flashing dangerously in Malfoy's direction. Harry blinked conciously. He almost felt sorry for Malfoy. Not quite, but almost.

        "We will begin our lesson. Dee, just like we practised." The wolf simply ignored the staring faces, taking a step away.

        Hagrid had procured a wooden trestle and brought it outside, covered in a soft green cloth with a few long bulges beneath it. It was this that the young boy that the wolf had named 'Dee' walked up to, patting it dramatically.

        He reached into his long black coat, fishing out a wand made from dark wood which looked much too big for him, but the boy managed to wave it about fluidly, as though it were an extension of his arm. "_Petrificus Totalus!_" he shouted suddenly, stabbing the wand at Harry.

        Harry had his wand in his hand that instant, "_Fortificus!_" he shouted in reply. As the two spells collided there was a grand flash of purple light, but apart from that, nothing. It was clear that Harry had blocked the Body Bind, but he could see no purpose in it. What good would it do to have them block basic hexes from someone who was too young to even _go_ to Hogwarts?

        Dee, on the other hand, seemed utterly rapt with the display. "That was cool!" Paelyn behind him smiled faintly as the boy turned around before returning his attention to the lesson he was meant to be taking. "We should do that again -- that was neat -- but see, it's easy to block. Profestor... erm... Fopressor... oh..."

        "Professor?" offered Parvarti Patil hopefully; a Gryffindor.

        "Yep!" Clapping his hands, Dee carried on. "Professor Dumbledore says that you should be able to block most of the -- um -- hexes that somebody could put on you -- and that was cool! -- but he wants you to do something different for a while."

        He reached under the cloth and pulled out a viscious-looking shotgun, cocked it, and pointed it into the crowd. By the amazing grin on Dee's face, Harry guessed this was part of the lesson, but he wasn't all that sure. "Who thinks they can block _this_?"

        There were no hands in the air that time. Even Hermione, Harry could see, had decided that it would be wiser not to test her knowledge in a situation like this. As if he'd been expecting the same result, Dee jumped away from the table, handing the shotgun to Paelyn and ducking back behind Hagrid.

        Harry smiled at the little boy as his eyes peeked furitively from behind Hagrid's enourmous tree-trunk legs. He decided Dee was the likable type if Hagrid got on with him, after all.

        "So, not so confident now are we, class?" Paelyn's voice interrupted Harry's train of thought and he looked back at what was going on. Slowly, the wolf brought the weapon to bear on each of the students before swinging it over his shoulder like a rucksack. He didn't look angry with them, though. He did, in fact, look quite amused.

        "I studied the history books on your world, young witches and wizards," Paelyn informed them smugly, "and I discovered that more than half the killings perpetrated by Voldemort's followers, the Death Eaters, were not magic based at all. They shot people. Stabbed people. Hanged people, poisoned people, electrocuted people and dismembered people. Physical attacks, my young charges."

        The tall wolf smiled, putting his arms out wide. "Who wants to attack me?"

        None of the Gryffindors moved, and strangely, it was mostly the Slytherin males who had their hands up -- Malfoy included, of course. Pansy Parkinson and her mob were so attentive to the strange Colonel's lesson that Harry was positive they were leaning forward in their chairs.

        Naturally, it was Malfoy that Paelyn picked to attack him. "Now, Mr Malfoy, do you very worst. I should rather like to see what it is that happens when a student decides to attack the master of his art."

        The wolf was still standing with his arms spread, waiting for Malfoy to do something -- anything, it seemed. Determined to rise to the occasion, Malfoy had his wand out, giving it a few demonstrative flicks, making sure to get his wrist movements and incantations right. Paelyn waited for him patiently. Harry was trying to decide if this was some technique of Paelyn's to see if his opponent would back down, but Malfoy seemed adamant -- probably some sense of injustice at being taught by a Muggle.

        A quick look at Hermione and Ron confirmed what Harry thought of the strange pair come to teach them. Though they were bizzare, everybody found them intensely interesting.

        The blonde-headed Slytherin pointed his wand while Harry was distracted, bellowing, "_Crucius!_" One of the four Unforgivable Curses! Hermione gasped loudly, and Ron clenched his fists, ready to pounce on Malfoy. Harry just watched. If Paelyn really had been studying...

        Faster than any of them could have imagined, Paelyn dodged, a blur of black coat and white fur. The spell caught the trailing edge of a vine along Hagrid's roof and it instantly curled up -- but nobody was watching it. By the time Malfoy had sucked in the breath to shout for help, Paelyn had kicked him -- rather sharply -- in the forehead, and had the Slytherin staring down the barrel of an enourmous revolver.

        "Now, Mr Malfoy, if you're quite convinced... Who would like to stay in this class?"

        For the second time that day, every hand shot into the air.

***

The lesson had been fantastic. Paelyn had taught the young Hogwarts students only the most basic of maneuvers and blocks in the two hours he had, but the most fun of all was when they were each paired up and given short sticks to tap each other with. The object was to touch your opponent on either the chest or neck, pretending that your stick was a knife.

        Fate had smiled on Harry, and, faster on his feet than the Slytherin he'd been partnered with, succeeded in bopping Draco Malfoy on the nose no less than four times. Finally, Malfoy got fed up and drew his wand to give Harry something 'proper' to worry about -- Paelyn then walked up and he, too, gave Malfoy a swift bopping.

        When the lesson was over, Harry, Ron, Hermione and Neville were clustered around the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall, talking excitedly about their new teachers in between mouthfuls of pizza, chicken drumsticks and the assorted sweets and candies dished up for lunch. Everybody had the same idea. They should do nothing but the _new_ Defence Against the Dark Arts for a while, then turn around and clobber Slytherin for the House Cup.

        "I'm telling you, you should've seen me!" Ron was on his feet, attacking some imaginary victim with a drumstick. "Wham! Then, when he was blocking that side, wham again!" Excitedly, he relived his _battle royale_ with the bulky Crabbe, swishing his piece of chicken like a sword at appropriate intervals.

        Hermione grabbed the exuberant Weasley by his robes and pulled him down onto his seat. "Calm down, you! I know everybody is excited about Professor Blaquerocke-"

        "Colonel Blaquerocke," corrected Ron, gravely.

        "-- Colonel then! Shh! Anyway, everybody is very excited about _Colonel_ Blaquerocke coming to teach us, but that doesn't mean we should ignore our other studies, you know. Professor McGonagall has prepared a test for us to find out what we remember after the holidays, and I bet not one of you so much as looked at a book while you were at home!" Apparently, she was finished. Hermione was only ever finished talking when she _couldn't_ talk; she had a large piece of sausage roll in her mouth.

        "I tried a Charm on the telly, to get rid of the adverts," explained Neville, "but instead I hit me Gran's bird, and now he won't stop trying to sell her a Muggle washing powder." He grinned impishly, and Ron patted him on the back.


End file.
